Quality Education For All

There are approximately 150,000 children living on the streets of Ethiopia, with 60,000 of those living in Addis Ababa. More than half of these children do not have access to shelter, adequate food, or an education.

ETHIOPIAID’S AIM: to promote quality education for all, and protect orphaned and vulnerable children

Our Solution

Ethiopiaid works with three education partners ensuring that we reach those in need across the whole of Ethiopia. We have worked with our largest education partner, Hope Enterprises, for over 20 years. Hope feeds and schools thousands of street children who are living in doorways, bus stations and makeshift shelters. Hope has established the following schemes that provide some of the most disadvantaged children in Ethiopia with quality education and training:

Dignity Period

Women’s menstruation can be a taboo topic and is seen as a source of shame for many in Ethiopia. Clean sanitary products can be both difficult to find and very expensive. Many girls are forced to use whatever materials are available, from grass and leaves to old rags or even nothing at all. Dignity Period works in the Tigray region to provide young women with the sanitary products they need. The charity provides reusable sanitary products and underwear that can last for 12-18 months, giving vulnerable young women the means to manage their monthly cycles. By doing so, Dignity Period hopes this will encourage girls to stay in school. The project works with the Mariam Seba Sanitary Products Factory, a local enterprise that employs more than 50 local women to make packs.

Ladders of Hope

Hope Enterprises aim to feed and school thousands of street children who are living in doorways, bus stations, and makeshift shelters. The Ladders of Hope programme starts with the street children's breakfast. Six days a week, 850 homeless children attend Hope Enterprise’s breakfast, where they receive two bread rolls, milk and a banana. The breakfast is an incentive to attend the informal literacy and numeracy classes that are held afterwards. By removing the constant pressure of finding money for food, the children are given time to learn so that they can progress to primary and secondary education. The Ladders of Hope programme helps children and youths in Addis Ababa work themselves out of poverty.

Hope Enterprises runs six schools throughout Ethiopia, providing free quality education to 697 students. This also includes the provision of school uniforms, materials, counselling, and food. Tutorial classes are provided for students in grade 8 and 10 to prepare them for the national exam in June. Students who pass the national examination are encouraged to apply to Universities and those that do not pass the exam are welcomed into the Vocational College. The college offers a variety of training such as metal fabrication and assembly, furniture making, industrial electric machines, and food preparation. Furthermore, Hope Enterprises offers career counselling and practice interviews to assist students into employment. The objective of the vocational training is to help the students be self-sufficient members of society, through education and employment.

Hope Enterprises also offer evening classes provide working parents with the opportunity to learn. In addition to reading and writing, the programme includes information surrounding family planning, hygiene sanitation and HIV/AIDS awareness.

Hope College of Business, Science & Technology

University education in Ethiopia has been a luxury that only the wealthy could afford. The inadequate university infrastructure has meant that many students (with the means to pay) have been forced to go abroad to complete their qualifications. They often do not return to Ethiopia, so valuable skills and expertise are lost. Hope College of Business, Science & Technology opened in October 2011, as the first public benefit institution of higher learning in Ethiopia. It is currently supporting 551 students through higher education - an opportunity that these young people would otherwise never have had. Of these, 275 are female. They have ambitions to increase the ratio to 60% girls to ensure that they are meeting the increasing demand for academic opportunities for young women in Ethiopia.

SENTigray

Ethiopia has the highest rate of preventable blindness in Africa. SENTigray support children with special educational needs in the Tigray area of Ethiopia. Unfortunately, in Ethiopia, only 1% of children with such needs have access to specialised education and are often disregarded by society. We are supporting the Mekelle Blind School to ensure these children can access an inclusive education. We will be helping to provide training in Perkins Braillers as well as a more supportive caring environment for the children, some of whom are as young as 5 years old and a long way from home.

More recently, SENTigray have been launching their Talking Textbooks Programme. SENTigray have recorded some 24 textbooks for grades 5 - 8, recruiting over 20 volunteer readers and doing all the editing to prepare the texts for uploading onto audio players. Of the 246 players distributed to date, only one broken player has been sent back. Feedback has been "very exciting and encouraging," students saying, "audio textbook players restore our eyesight."

Our Impact

In partnership with these education organisations, we have achieved:

In the past two years, over 90% of graduates from the vocational college have secured employment.

The vocational training college piloted a hospitality course tailored for street girls. Next year they hope to train 30 street girls. In 2016, 148 students graduated from university, and 195 students graduated from vocational training.

160 blind children in boarding school are being cared for, well fed and accessing an education. 246 visually impaired students in grades 5-8 in 59 schools, as well as the blind teachers in these schools, have now received their audio textbook players. These audio textbook players are absolutely vital to the visually impaired students.

Young women in rural Tigray have gained access to affordable sanitary materials (98% of girls in the region lack access) and 50 local women are employed to create packs for the region.

In 2016, 819 students passed exams across all Hope secondary school sites. 950 students were provided with school lunches. 850 beneficiaries of the daily street children’s breakfasts were served over 300,000 meals. 79,000 lunches were served for destitute children, teenagers, and adults.